Rachel Rosenman

Rachel Rosenman

Theory
rrosenman@g.harvard.edu

Thesis: Towards an Intermedial Poetics of Song: Case Studies in 20th-Century French Mélodie

Rachel H. Rosenman is a Ph.D. candidate in music theory. She is broadly interested in studying relationships between music, language, and text. Rachel’s current research focuses on French lyric song around the turn of the twentieth century, considering certain composers’ personal musical aesthetics as a way to pursue broader questions about how words and music can work together. Specifically, her dissertation analyzes works by the composers Erik Satie (1866–1925), Mel Bonis (1858–1937), and Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) as examples of experiments with the possibilities of vocal music. Her other research interests include feminist approaches in music theory, German art song, and popular music in contemporary France.

Rachel holds a B.A. in Music and French Studies from Wesleyan University and an M.M. in Music Theory from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. At Harvard, Rachel is also pursuing a secondary field in Comparative Literature and has worked with modern and contemporary literature and poetry in French and German.

Photo credit: Nicole Loeb